Against the Current
by Eiryni
Summary: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." - F. Scott Fitzgerald


**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

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Chapter 1: Feeling Invincible

"Do you remember feeling invincible?

When there was trouble it was us against the world.

We kept running,

Running through the night."

-"Gravity" by Against the Current

It was absolute chaos. The grass was slippery with the warm wetness of blood. Bodies littered the ground, some face up, their eyes still wide open and mouths drawn open — forever — mid-scream. The metallic smell of blood was overwhelming but the stench of fear overpowered it. Those still standing were either fighting or desperately trying to get away.

Often there are people who believe themselves to be invincible. They delude themselves with fantasies of what war is. Encouraged by books, they believe it to be something to be admired, similar to a heroic adventure.

It is not until they are lying at the feet of the enemy and at their mercy that they truly learn what war is.

To this day, I still don't know what it is. I have sat and pondered but can never conjure a purpose for it.

Perhaps there simply isn't a purpose.

I will admit that for awhile I too thought I was invincible. I thought, with my childish naïveté, that anything the world threw at me, I could face.

I was wrong.

I was so, so wrong.

Battle after battle, we lost more and more people and I realized that no one was invincible. We were all vulnerable. We could stand as tall as possible — as proud as possible — but hit us in the right place and we could go crashing down.

It seems to me that in war, we are only ever fighting to survive.

We were one of the ones running. Perhaps we were cowards, but we knew a lost battle when we saw one. It was better to run and live to fight another day than die and give the opponents an upper hand. We needed to retreat and regroup.

We ran into the woods, the branches scratching our skin, leaving small shallow cuts all over our faces, arms, and legs. They'd cast an Anti-Apparition spell where we were fighting and if we could just reach that opening in the woods up ahead...

We were so close...

Abruptly, ropes wrapped around our arms and legs, making us tumble to the ground. Three hooded figures materialized out of the darkness of the woods. There was one that stood at the forefront of the group and was obviously the leader. He examined us as my heart pounded in fear and dread.

Finally, "Take the girl, dispose of the boy."

My heart stopped as the words sunk in and then I was struggling with all my might. A pair of hands grabbed me, lifting me off the ground.

"NO! NO!"

I was struggling and thrashing around, desperately trying to loosen the ropes and fight back.

"NICK!"

I let out one final scream before I was whirled away from him.

The year was 1942 and I had become one of Grindelwald's prisoners. I wouldn't know anything but cold, stone floors, cruel faces, and my own blood until 1945 when the war finally ended.

Out of all the other prisoners, I was the only survivor.

Grindelwald hadn't let the availability of prisoners to waste. He'd used us to test experimental magic, comparing the effects between males and females. That was the reason I had been spared back at the woods. One of the female prisoners had died and I had taken her place.

Many times I'd wished I'd just died like the rest of them. It would have been so easy to let go of all the pain and suffering, to feel nothing, absolutely nothing. There would be nothing that would plague me ever again.

And I would get to see Mum, Dad, and Nick again.

Oddly enough, this thought had actually motivated me to survive. Perhaps it was the thought that they would find me cowardly if I had just died so easily.

When I had arrived back at the old home I had spent a short period of my childhood at, I was shocked when I stepped into my old bedroom, a cheerful mix of yellow and white. Photos I had taken when I was little and naïve littered the floor. The world portrayed in the photographs seemed so colorful and wonderful than the cold, grey world I now saw as I looked out the window.

It wasn't until Dumbledore came and offered to enroll me as a student at Hogwarts that I finally realized the change in my perspective. I was merely a shell of the person I had been growing up. I had none of the fiery determination that my younger counterpart had. The little girl growing up would not have let the deaths of her family completely suck out her soul. No, she would have stood back up and achieved her dreams as well as those of her family's.

It was with this conclusion that I was now riding the Hogwarts Express towards Hogwarts.

The train was deathly quiet as I was heading there early. Dumbledore had said that they needed to see where I was at academically and place me in suitable classes.

I leaned my forehead against the cool glass of the window as the train rattled on. I knew that if Nick were here he would be making jokes and soothing my nerves as we rode towards Hogwarts.

I smiled faintly and closed my eyes and imagined the scene that would occur. I would still be positioned just the same, with my forehead resting on the cool pane but I would be fighting a smile as I tried to pretend to be annoyed by his antics. He would continue to bother me and I would get out a book, pretending not to listen to his jokes when in reality, he would have my whole attention. After a moment, Nick would pause and then complain that it was unfair that we did not have the luxury of having a food trolley because he was _so hungry_, and I would roll my eyes and tell him that he was _always hungry_. He would grin and say that that was what I loved most about him.

The scene seemed so real that I could almost hear his laugh.

But, when I opened my eyes, I was all alone.

"Time flew, cut through

All over town

You made me bleed when I look up

And you're not around."

-"The Days" by Avicii


End file.
